Greece general strike disrupts transport as workers demand higher pay
Ships docked at Greek ports, and railway and bus services were disrupted on Wednesday as workers joined a nationwide strike to demand higher pay.
ATHENS — Ships docked at Greek ports, and railway and bus services were disrupted on Wednesday as transport workers, hospital doctors, school teachers together with construction workers joined a nationwide strike to protest squeezed living standards and demand higher pay.
Many Greeks saw their wages and pensions slashed in return for bailouts worth 280 billion euros ($297 billion) during a 2009-2018 debt crisis which shaved a quarter off Greece’s economic output and nearly pushed the country out of the eurozone.
With the Greek economy recovering steadily since 2018, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis’ center-right government has raised the minimum monthly gross wage four times since taking power in 2019 to 830 euros a month and has promised to raise it further to 950 euros by 2027.
However, the Greeks say the rises are not enough and their salaries — which still fall behind the European average — do not last them a month as energy, food and housing costs escalate faster.
“Prices and rents have skyrocketed, while wages are at a low point,” read the strike poster of GSEE, Greece’s largest private sector union, which called for immediate and substantial pay rises for workers struggling with what it said was an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis.
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